This invention relates to fantasy sports contest systems and methods and, more particularly, fantasy sports contests based on subevents within a sporting event.
Athletic endeavors have long supported a broad range of secondary competitions which include wagering on the outcome of particular games and wagering on the performance of a particular player.
In known fantasy sports contests, the user selects a roster, a team, a particular individual, or a group of individuals in an athletic contest. The user of a fantasy sports contest system is given the ability to take on the role of a fictional general manager with powers which may include the ability to draft, trade, dismiss and otherwise manage the player or players on the user's fantasy sports team.
Conventionally, the rules in a fantasy sports contest are set by a fantasy sports contest system provider, or are set by a league commissioner who sets the rules under which a group of fantasy or rotisserie sports game users competes against each other. For example, for every goal scored in real-life by a member of the user's fantasy soccer team, a conventional fantasy sports contest system might award five points to the user in the fantasy competition.
A provider of a conventional fantasy sports contest system may also provide additional services, which include providing statistical information on real-life games and players, tracking users' scores in the fantasy contest, and enabling transactions and other interactions among the users.
A fantasy sports contest may be based on a variety of real-life athletic events, and typically involves users selecting players from real-life team sports (e.g., football, baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer or rugby), selecting players from real-life sports where individuals compete (e.g., golf, tennis or automotive racing), or selecting competitors from competitions involving animals (e.g., horse and dog racing). The user's selections are typically stored in the user's fantasy sports contest roster. The performance of these selections in real-life competition determines the user's performance in the fantasy sports competition.
A fantasy sports contest goes beyond traditional one-time wagering applications (e.g., selecting picks for the winners of a weekend's football games or picking who will win a most valuable player award).
Known fantasy sports contests are based on the cumulative performance of the user's selections over a prolonged period (e.g., an entire season in the subject sport). In order to succeed, the user must devote a large amount of time in order to manage a fantasy sports contest team roster as a season progresses. This necessary commitment over a prolonged period can inhibit user interest in a fantasy sports contest, especially among users interested in fantasy sports contests on a casual basis. In many cases, users lose interest and stop participating in the fantasy sports contest as a season progresses, especially if the user has fallen behind in the rankings. The prolonged and involved nature of known fantasy sports contests also restricts its popularity with would-be users having only an interest in a single sporting event (e.g., the Super Bowl™), or would-be users having a casual interest in a segment of a televised sports contest.